[How I explore ... the risk of a patient developing type 2 diabetes]

Both the prevalence and the incidence of type 2 diabetes are increasing rapidly. Effective prevention measures, including lifestyle or drug prescription, have been recently reported. It is thus important to detect at risk individuals in order to provide appropriate diet and exercise recommendations or even pharmacological treatment. We summarize the most useful indices based on anamnesis, clinical examination and biological assays that can help to detect subjects at high risk of progression towards type 2 diabetes.